The Gathering by Anne Enright

The Gathering by Anne Enright is not a happy book. It is a good book - but not a happy one. Veronica lives in Dublin with her successful husband and two young daughters. Veronica has come up in the world: she lives in a nicer house, drives a nicer car and has more money than her nine brothers and sisters. But when the sibling closest to her, Liam, commits suicide, Veronica is pulled back through memory, to their childhood and the secret she and Liam shared.

I found this to be a beautifully written story about the secrets and betrayals and love within a family. The language was lyrical and original, the story compelling. I felt is deserved the 2007 Man Booker Prize and look forward to reading other novels by Anne Enright.

(This is just a quick review because I actually read this over a month ago and it is fading a bit from memory. I wanted to mention it here because it was a good book. And despite saying it is kind of a downer, it does have an upish sort of ending. In case you were worried.)

First line of The Gathering by Anne Enright: "I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen."